1993 APT1 Conference : Identity, tradition and change

and contemporary art? Surely, there is no single model of 'cultural identity' that could prove adequate to its contradictory historical forms. As Australia reaches her friendly hand across the ocean, artistic exchange in various forms have taken place with varying degree of intensity over the era of Bob Hawke and now Paul Keating. While the cross-cultural mating sometimes get hot and excruciating, countries like Thailand and those in Asia join the inter-course but sometimes with certain amount of frigidity. The reasons are not only because of threat or distrust but the inside/outside distinctions have become problematized that the dichotomous structure within nationalism has intensified the Us-Them divide. Outrage against the contamination of the West has resulted in the fear of outerness. The discovery of threat from without has led to the thought, not so much 'cultural cringe', but 'cultural crisis' that will reach its nadir if nationalism does not fight back with a vengence. But instead of exploring the heterogenous elements intertwined within the fabrics of Thai society nationalist ideology is invented to achieve a false and repressive resolution of nationhood. Although Thailand escaped Western colonialism it resulted in the need to accelerate westernization in order to survive such threat. Hence, the desire to be self colonized. More recently, to promote awareness of Thai-ness the 3